ESSAY

ESSAY; The German Problem

By William Safire

Published: January 2, 1989

WASHINGTON—
Can it be that the ''good Germans'' are at it again - claiming to know nothing about the participation of some of their countrymen in a power-maniac's plans for his own Final Solution?

For six months, Western intelligence agencies have been sharing pictures and recordings that suggest a poison-gas factory is being built by Libya's Muammar Qaddafi with the help of at least two West German companies.

Six weeks ago, in a White House meeting with his old companion of Bitburg, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, President Reagan called this danger directly and officially to the attention of the Federal Republic. An investigation was promised, but no sense of urgency has been shown.

I suspect that a German whitewash will try to show that other nations have also contributed to the Libyan facility, and that the plant can also produce fertilizer for invited inspectors. Mr. Kohl's cover-up brigade is searching for a single widget component made in America so the report can read, ''Everybody's at fault.''

One might think that this generation of Germans, aware of the guilt of their fathers in the gassing of millions of innocents not so long ago, would be particularly sensitive to the prospect of complicity in the murder by gas of civilians by a terrorist state today. But apparently too many ''good Germans'' just don't want to know about it.

That excuse of ignorance never had validity, and has even less now. News of the poison-gas plant 40 miles south of Tripoli has been bruited about in the world press for months. Last week, after a suggestion in this space that the U.S. and Israel begin joint preparation to take out the threat, Mr. Reagan was asked publicly if that possibility was being considered; he pointedly refused to rule it out. Because the Qaddafi ''pharmaceutical plant'' is the only one in the world ringed by anti-aircraft defenses, several newspapers then speculated on the use of cruise missiles.

Yesterday Stephen Engelberg and Michael Gordon of The New York Times broke the story in stunning detail. West German participation in the design and construction of the vast chemical plant at Rabta in Libya was revealed, along with facts about French aid in refueling bombers that would make possible the quick delivery of poison-gas bombs to Tel Aviv residents who are descendants of those forced to breathe Cyclon-B at Auschwitz.

Sputtering denials were dutifully reported. Just as Dictator Qaddafi claimed his chemical complex was for making medicine, a West German corporate official claimed his Libyan contract was for plastic bags. State terrorism using poison gas always has a cover story; in the face of hard evidence of the recent death of thousands of Kurds by poison gas, the killer who runs Iraq blandly insists it never happened.

Some Western Europeans can be expected to blame the potential victims: this is all a Jewish plot to deny honest profit to German manufacturers, or an American plot to provide an excuse for anti-Arab adventurism.

The moral reaction from West Germans with consciences, including journalists, is to demand the whole truth quickly. Who broke what laws and what government officials turned a blind eye? Why did Bonn's higher-ups procrastinate for six months?

Take the scandal deeper: Does export-loving Foreign Minister Genscher approve of the way West German missile experts are providing third world nations with the technical means to build delivery systems for gas bombs? Does Mr. Kohl consider it legal and moral for Bonn to permit certain of its well-connected nationals to help terrorize the world?

Those unreachable by conscience should consider the boomerang effect of letting West German citizens help build and deliver mass-murder weapons.

Some Kurds seeking vertical vengeance for the extermination of their families may look beyond Saddam Hussein; some black defenders of Chad who see their country fall under a Libyan gas attack may look beyond Qaddafi; and if mustard gas created with the help of businessmen near Munich ever rains on Jerusalem, some unreasonable relatives of victims - both Arab and Israeli -may retaliate beyond Tripoli. That's why Auschwitz-in-the-sand calls for prompt obliteration, after appropriate warning by leaflet.

Poison gas sometimes blows back on its perpetrators far behind the lines. That's a practical reason for Western European governments to crack down on poison-gas profiteers who not only threaten innocents abroad, but ultimately endanger their own people.